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2011 Program

CANADA AFTER DARK (Canadian Short Film Showcase)

Short Description

CANADA AFTER DARK comprises 16 outstanding new Canadian horror, sci-fi, action, and cult short films. These locally made cinematic gems screen throughout the festival as the opening acts for our feature films.

The Buzz

All the Short Films Screening at Toronto After Dark received MULTIPLE REVIEWS, read them here.

OVERVIEW

With Toronto After Dark premiering an unprecedented number of fantastic made-in-Canada features this year, it should be of no surprise that our line-up of Canadian short films is better than ever.

This year we are immensely proud to be jam-packed with award-winning festival favorites (THE LEGEND OF BEAVER DAM, HOW TO RID YOUR LOVER OF A NEGATIVE EMOTION CAUSED BY YOU, NOWHERE ELSEWHERE and ANIMAL CONTROL), striking animated works (LADY PARANORMA, PASO DOBLE), hauntingly beautiful and nightmarish fables (THE ADDER’S BITE, ETHEREAL CHRYSALIS, THE WEIGHT OF EMPTINESS) and a bevy of international and world premieres (PRICK, BLIND SPOT, THE INCIDENT and Spookey Ruben’s PUZZLEFACE featuring Ken Russell and Rodrigo Gudiño!), including two world premieres by the deranged genius behind Blackheads and last year’s FIVE YEARS YOUNG Festival Bumper, Chris Nash: the jaw-dropping MY MAIN SQUEEZE and LIPLOCK, the concluding films to the filmmaker’s “skin disease trilogy”.

With the witty comedy of YOU ARE SO UNDEAD, the spectacular production design of LOST FOR WORDS, and ANAMNESIS, the winning short from the Toronto Film Challenge’s Fall Edition rounding off the slate, TAD11 audiences are guaranteed to experience the very best in genre entertainment before each feature presentation at the festival. Congrats Canada, you did it again and then some.

- Peter Kuplowsky

COMPLETE LISTING (IN SCREENING ORDER)

THURS OCT 20

The Legend of Beaver Dam | 12 min | 2010
Dir. Jerome Sable, 12 min, 2010
Official Selection, TIFF 2010
Official Selection, Sundance 2011
Best Short Film, Fantasia 2011
Precedes Monster Brawl
A young camper must battle a campfire-story come to life in order to save his fellow campers in what is already being hailed as the greatest horror-rock-opera hybrid ever made.

Lost for Words | 10 min | 2010
Dir. Sean Wainsteim
Precedes Redline
An ode to libraries and the magic of storytelling; a young runaway stumbles into a fantastic realm of curious creatures and sinister fiends in this delirious phantasmagoria of digital wizardry and old-fashioned puppetry.

You Are So Undead | 6 min | 2010
Dir. Alex Epstein
Official Selection, Dead by Dawn Intl. Horror Film Festival
Precedes War of the Dead
Teen-bathroom banter takes on a decidedly supernatural register in this witty coming-of-age comedy.

SUN OCT 23

Anamnesis | 8 min | 2011
Dir: Damian Weston & Pete Williams
Winner of the Toronto Film Challenge Fall 2011, Jury Prize for Best Film.
Precedes Some Guy Who Kills People
A woman wrestles with the unnerving prospect that the spirit that haunts her may be her own.

The Weight of Emptiness | 13 min | 2011
Dir. Alain Fournier
Official Selection, TIFF 2011
Precedes Love
A young boy with a peculiar power perpetually attempts an escape, but is repeatedly thwarted by his melancholy mother who refuses to let him go.

The Adder’s Bite | 10 min | 2010
Dir. Firas Momani
Official Selection, TIFF 2010
Short Film Grand Prize, Fantasia 2010
Precedes Midnight Son
In the dank corridors of a public swimming centre, a haunting ritual between otherworldly creatures ensues; an unsettling and grotesque visualization of Nietzschean philosophy.

MON, OCT 24

Nowhere Elsewhere | 15 min | 2010
Dir. Annick Blanc
Best Cinematography, CFC Toronto Worldwide Shorts Film Festival
Precedes Absentia
A stopover at a roadside motel triggers a surreal and haunting psychodrama for a woman as she prepares herself and her family for a visit to her ailing her mother.

The Incident | 7 min | 2011
Dir. Jules Saulnier
North American Premiere
Precedes A Lonely Place To Die
Why must Baltimore be destroyed? A secret agent desperately attempts to solve this riddle and many others as he maniacally traverses through a foreign city.

TUES, OCT 25

Blind Spot | 6 min | 2011
Dir. Matthew Nayman
World Premiere
Precedes The Divide
Stuck in traffic whilst being given the round around by your travel agent? At least it’s not the end of the world… unless of course it is.

Animal Control | 17 min | 2010
Dir. Kire Paputts
Official Selection, TIFF 2010
Official Selection, SITGES 2010
Precedes The Corridor
An amateur taxidermist finds his lonely life forever altered when the specimen he’s brought home to stuff turns out to be alive. Sure to simultaneously creep out and endear animal lovers everywhere.

How to Rid Your Lover of A Negative Emotion Caused By You | 16 min | 2011
Dir. Nadia Litz
Precedes VS
Sadie and Dennis are about to discover that sometimes love can leave its scars… literally.

THURS, OCT 27

Liplock | 18 min | 2011
Dir. Chris Nash
World Premiere
Precedes The Woman
A woman finds herself in a nightmarishly uncomfortable predicament when the man she’s having an affair with gets stuck in her during sex. Then things get a lot worse.